Does the Sony PRS600 Touch Edition eReader Have What it Takes to Challenge the Kindle 2? 1

Does the Sony PRS600 Touch Edition eReader Have What it Takes to Challenge the Kindle 2?

Sony’s new Touch Edition eReader is arguably the largest cutting-edge challenger to Amazon’s Kindle.

The following is primarily based on my impressions after using the Sony PRS600 eReader for a few weeks.

Sony

First of all, permit’s list some of the specifications of Sony’s new contact screen eReader:

6″ contact screen; 600 x 800 pixels; eight grayscales
Freehand word taking and annotating, highlighting; use the protected stylus or virtual keyboard

512 MB reminiscence onboard will hold as much as 350 ebooks
Accepts Memory Stick Pro Duo or SD card

  • Single font adjustable to 5 sizes
  • The battery lasts for up to two weeks, or 7,500 web page turns
  • Built-in dictionary
  • Available in silver, black, or crimson
  • Formats supported: PDF, Adobe Digital Editions, epub, mp3, Microsoft Word documents, BBeB

The PRS 600 comes with a neoprene carry bag. You might probably want to get a terrific cover although, the protected sporting bag does now not provide a great deal safer. You also get a USB cable to hook up with your pc and a quick start manual. If you want an AC adaptor, you may need to buy that one by one. You can do without, although as eInk based totally eReaders like this one has perfect battery lifestyles. A full-rate does take about four hours, all through which period the eReader must be related to your power on the computer’s USB port.

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Sony additionally introduced a few new functions to go with their new eReaders. For one thing, Sony’s eBook Store software program is now Mac well matched. Also, Sony eBook readers can be supporting Adobe Digital Editions, which means that you should buy ebooks from resources apart from the Sony eBook Store. Ebooks within the Sony eBook Store will also be presented in Adobe Digital Editions. The proprietors of different eBook readers should purchase ebooks from Sony if they’re also compatible with ADE. Finally, you may be able to borrow ebooks from public libraries that use Overdrive as their supplier for virtual media.

Being able to test out ebooks out of your local library and read them to your eReader seems like a surely excellent feature; however, on the cutting-edge time, it is minimal. Most libraries handiest have a few titles to choose from. The Los Angeles Public Library system, as an example, only has a touch extra than two hundred titles presently, and that is a large library device. Libraries even have a finite quantity of “copies” of each identify, so most ebooks will have a ready listing to get on earlier than you may test one out.

The Sony PRS seven hundred, which the Sony Touch Edition replaces, turned into notorious for its awful glare, which made studying outdoors or in vibrant light tough. This is a common problem with touch screens, as is decreased comparison. The PRS 600 isn’t always quite as awful as the PRS 700. However, there’s some glare. Contrast is likewise no longer as good as on maximum eReaders without touch displays. When analyzing outside, I located the Touch Edition to be quite readable in the complete sun or full coloration. Where I had troubles became in partial color; it was hard to discover an attitude that did not display glare patterns on the display screen. Indoors I observed the worst glare while studying beside a table lamp or reading on the mattress with an aspect table lamp.

Glare problems apart, the contact screen does make navigation simpler. Page turns are carried out by way of both the usage of a finger swipe at the contact screen or with the aid of the use of the buttons at the lowest of the reader. The finger swipe takes a few getting used to. The Sony Touch is rather tough to use with one hand while reading in bed. Sony could have made this simpler by putting page turn buttons on the sides of the eReader rather than on the bottom.

Touch

The touchscreen also comes in handy for taking notes and highlighting. You can use the stylus to scribble in the margins if you like. You also can make annotations on PDF’s, but no longer while they may be zoomed. The default PDF viewer is normally too small to study as an entire web page is equipped onto the display, which on the PRS six hundred is a bit small for this reason. You can use the zoom-in characteristic on PDF’s and then pan the photo round using your finger at the touchscreen.

You also have the capacity to organize your ebooks together in “collections” of titles primarily based on creator, category, and so forth. You can best try this from the pc but, now, not from the eReader itself.

On the entire, I actually have enjoyed the use of the Sony Touch Edition. There are multiple areas in which I assume it falls rather short when compared to the Kindle 2.

First of all, is the not so small matter of content material. If you cast off the Google public area ebooks from the Sony eBook Store, you may be left with about 1/three of the number of titles that the Kindle store has. Yes, it would help if you bought ebooks from other online eBook stores, but they frequently seem to have quite a lot of the same titles at comparable prices. When I have at comparison eBook prices, the Kindle shop nearly always is much less high priced for a given identity.

Then of direction, there is Kindle’s wireless connection. Of route, buying ebooks wirelessly could be very handy, but the wireless connection makes the Kindle 2 plenty greater versatile. If you need to analyze something you’re reading, you may access Wikipedia or search on the net. The Kindle browser is a piece clunky, but if you want to access the internet or test your electronic mail, it is there for you. For me, this is a miles greater precious function than the contact display. Sony has also announced the Daily Edition eReader, which must be out by the give up of 2009 and include a wi-fi connection. However, Sony’s wireless will simplest help you hook up with the Sony eBook Store; no internet and no wireless connections to other eBook shops. At least this is the information that has been launched about the Daily Edition to this point.

eReader

In conclusion, I do just like the Sony. I located the glare to now and then be distracting, however not so terrible as to be a deal-breaker. You can also feel differently, although it is probably an amazing idea to have a palms-on look when you have a Sony Style keep near you. I assume Kindle’s wi-fi connectivity is a much extra compelling characteristic to have than Sony’s contact screen. And unless you mainly want to study present-day bestsellers (which are basically $nine.99 anywhere) or Google’s public area offerings, you could discover that you may have less studying fabric to pick out from with Sony’s eReaders than with a Kindle 2, and it’ll probably price you more.